Because crazy always makes a great first impression

    When it comes to life in general I’m as impatient as a person can be. But when it comes to my kids I like to think I totally rock in the whole patient, nurturing, loving mom department. The baby colored on the wall? Time to break out the magic eraser. You want to play hair shop and yank half the hair out of my head? Here’s a brush. You want to pretend to be a musician at 8 am? Here’s the Barbie guitar, baby piano, drums and maracas’. Bonus points if you can all sing together while you channel your inner Taylor Swift and Lady Gaga. Practice up and we’re hitting the road baby.  

     And then there are times when they push me to that line, linger there for a minute as if they’re testing the waters and then WHAM push me right over that edge. The edge where suddenly I’m yelling for everyone to go to timeout, wild hand gestures are flailing around to emphasize that YEP, MOM JUST WENT CRAZY and suddenly I’m hearing phrases coming out of my mouth that are wildly dictatorial. While the success rate of a little bit of crazy is just about 100% when used in moderation, I hate it. Mostly I resent that afterwards I feel like I lost control. Because my kids are amazing, and that carelessly spilled cup of juice, that picture that got knocked down, those kids who bumped heads and are now wailing after I told them for the 10^th time to settle down before someone gets hurt, well they don’t deserve the crazy mom, regardless of how seldom she appears.

     It’s very rarely what they do that sends me over the edge; it’s more an accumulation of a variety of mishaps in a short period of time. I swear at times it seems like they must have huddled up, conferred about their level of boredom and then took bets on who could get Momma to go crazy and in what amount of time. I bet the winner gets secreted stashes of pixie sticks (or as I like to call it, kiddy crack) that were hidden away last Halloween. So I’m working on becoming a more serene Momma, and rolling with the punches. Mainly just to mess up the betting pool and freak them out, but also because I know that one day I’m going to miss all of this. One day they won’t be babies, or toddlers or even kids anymore. And these childish antics will progress into teenage ones that will inevitably land one, if not all, of us in therapy. Then they’ll be gone, adults out in the world, fending for themselves without me there to micromanage every detail of their life.

     So despite the short term effects of a calmer, quieter, cleaner household that  will always follow a bout of crazy; I think I’d rather soak in the contained chaos that usually reigns here in this casa of ours. Because that’s where the sound of giggles trail up and down the halls, happy memories are made, smothering amounts of hugs and kisses are given and received and where each night four amazingly smart and beautiful children lay down their heads and go to sleep knowing how much they are loved. And loved they are, more than they will ever know.